Category Archives: reading comprehension

4 ways to improve reading comprehension

Posted on November 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

For years I have focused on the importance of a phonics-based reading curriculum for beginning readers. Research shows that young students exposed to sequential phonics instruction have better reading outcomes than students who learn primarily through other approaches.

But once students have learned the basic rules of phonics, and they are reading to learn new information, research shows other activities can help students comprehend better. Here are some.

Photos, drawings, sounds, videos and picture books can help students understand new-to-them concepts before they read about them. Providing students with rich background information can make acquiring new information easier. Students can fit new ideas into old ideas, or show how the new idea is the same or different from the old idea.

Venn diagrams are another way to do this. For example, to learn the relationship of math operations, students could see a Venn diagram like this:

The idea is to connect new information to information students already know. Stick figures showing two families’ with arrows from one person to another could show what nieces and nephews are.

Tables connecting what students know to what they don’t know can help. Here is how. Create a row of three sections. On the left, write a vocabulary word or concept students know. Leave the middle blank. On the right, write the new concept to be learned. Help students fill in the center by connecting the idea on the left to the new word on the right.

my birthday

important day in my life, hard to forget day, day I think about

milestone

What I’m doing at different times all day long

8 Pledge of Allegiance

8:15 reading class

9:15 snack

9:30 math class

schedule

We adults connect new concepts to what we know all the time. And, like students, if what we know is scant, we have a hard time learning the new concept. For example, I was reading a novel about a World War I soldier who was demobbed. What in the world is demobbed? I wondered. Attacked by a mob? Thrown out from a mob? I looked the word up, and found that demobbed means discharged from military service.

Okay, so how do I remember it? I know what a mob is, but in this case mob is short for mobilized, so that doesn’t help. I know what a mobile phone is though, so I pictured a soldier texting someone on his mobile phone to tell that he is discharged. Maybe he is throwing his hat in the air too. So connecting pictures to words and events is another method of comprehending.

Learning to read doesn’t stop with applying the rules of phonics. That is a vital start. Another vital aspect of reading is comprehension, a lifelong process.

The idea is to connect new information to information students already know. Stick figures showing two familie with arrows from one person to another could show what nieces and nephews are.

Tables connecting what students know to what they don’t know can help. Create a row of three sections. On the left, write a vocabulary word or concept students know. Leave the middle blank. On the right, write the new concept to be learned. Help students fill in the center by connecting the idea on the left to the new word on the right.

my birthday

important day in my life, hard to forget day, day I think about

milestone

What I’m doing at different times all day long

8 Pledge of Allegiance

8:15 reading class

9:15 snack

9:30 math class

schedule

We adults connect new concepts to what we know all the time. And if what we know is scant, we have a hard time learning the new concept. For example, I was reading a novel about a World War I soldier who was demobbed. What in the world is demobbed? I wondered. Attacked by a mob? Thrown out from a mob? I looked the word up, and demobbed means discharged from military service. Okay, so how do I remember it? I know what a mob is, but in this case mob is short for mobilized, so that doesn’t help. I know what a mobile phone is though, so I pictured a soldier texting on his mobile phone that he is discharged. Maybe he is throwing his hat in the air too.

Learning to read doesn’t stop with applying the rules of phonics. That is a vital start. Another vital aspect of reading is comprehension, a lifelong process.

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Posted in background knowledge, comprehension, diagrams, methods of teaching reading, phonics, picture books, reading comprehension

Having trouble reading? Average the number of words per sentence.

Posted on April 25, 2025 | Leave a comment

In preparing a third grade student last year for her end-of-year exams, I thought a certain passage might be a good fit for her reading level. The passage had been suggested as appropriate preparation for an end-of-year test for third graders in New York State. I gave it a go. The results were disastrous. Why?

The setting of the passage is a rural farm building and its surrounding snow-covered fields in 19th century Russia. My student lives in the suburbs of Atlanta in the 21st century. She has almost no experience with snow.

The main character is a hare. My student has no experience with rabbits or hares.

Certain ideas a 19^th century rural Russian child might be familiar with have no meaning for my student. “Threshing-floor,” “hoarfrost,” “open granary,” “lair,” and “peasants” are words from the story which baffled my student.

I decided this passage was inappropriate and decided to scrap using it. But recently I discovered that a teacher had done a reading analysis on that same text and found it was written at at sixth grade reading level.

A sixth-grade reading level test offered as a sample text for third graders preparing for their final exam. Hmm.

When I was in college, I was baffled while reading an assigned text. I read the first page five times, gaining almost no meaning from the words. I did a number of words per sentence analysis of the first page and discovered that the average number of words per sentence was 54. The author of the text might have known his subject matter, but he did not now how to write legibly.

Years ago Edward Fry created a graph for estimating the readability of a text. (It is produced below.) If you look closely, you will see that the number of sentences per 100 words is high for first graders, meaning young children will be able to read small sentences. When I was in 13^th grade, according to Fry, I should have been able to read 3.6 sentences per 100 words. That is about 3 and a half sentences of 28 words each, a big difference from almost two sentences of 54 words each.

As a comparison, the Bible in English has an average of 16.7 words per sentence. Books with a great deal of dialog usually have fewer words per sentence.

My point is that if your child is having a hard time reading a text, don’t immediately conclude that it must be your child’s fault. It could be the author’s.

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Posted in Fry Realability Graph, reading comprehension, reading research

US reading scores decline. Again.

Posted on January 29, 2025 | Leave a comment

40 percent of fourth graders cannot read at a basic skills level.

One third of eighth graders cannot read at a basic skills level. For eighth graders this is the largest number of students ever to read so poorly.

These conclusions are the result of tests students took between January and March 2024. Test results show scores lower than prepandemic scores, meaning students have not made up the ground lost in 2020. In fact, the decline has continued.

These results were announced today, January 29, 2025, by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), sometimes called the Nation’s Report Card, which compiled state data and analyzed it.

These test results mean at least a third of US school children cannot routinely understand written text. They cannot explain why a character acts the way he does in a story.

The gap between higher- and lower-performing students has been a “persistent trend for about a decade,” according to the NAEP. The decline in lower-performing students’ scores accounts for most of the overall decline in scores. Higher performing students score about 100 points more than lower performing students. Until 2010 this gap was narrowing, but since then it has been widening.

Again: 40 percent of US fourth graders cannot read at a basic level. One-third of eighth graders cannot read at a basic level.

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Posted in literacy, reading comprehension, reading readiness., reading tests

Ten questions to gain deeper understanding of a book

Posted on August 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

I write quizzes about books to help my students understand books better. Coming up with thought-provoking questions is a struggle. Too often I want to ask for a single fact, such as “Who is Peter’s little brother.” To help me devise more meaningful questions, I keep a list of question types. Here are questions you might use with your students.

What is the best summary of the book/chapter? I provide four options, keeping in mind that some students have trouble distinguishing between main ideas and details.

What is the best paraphrasing of a sentence or paragraph? I provide options which range from mostly restating information to truly putting the information into other words.

Why does the author ____? Repeat a word? Describe the weather so much? Not talk about negative feelings? Use a simile? These kinds of questions ask the student to consider the author’s style and the choices the author makes in writing a particular way.

How is this book/chapter structured? In chronological order? From most important to least important information? Stating a cause and its effects? Stating effects leading to a cause? From scary to scarier to scariest? Stating a conversation that becomes funnier and funnier? Many students read without realizing someone wrote what they read, and that someone made choices.

Does the writer like or approve of ____? We know right from the beginning that J.K. Rowling does not approve of Malfoy in the Harry Potter series. But how do we know that? What words tell us that? What actions? What facial expressions?

In what order do actions occur? List two or three actions, and ask what the next action is. Sequencing questions might force students to reread sections or to read more carefully the first time.

What is the tone of a chapter or conversation? What is the mood? I usually define tone and mood in the question to help the student.

What might a certain action foreshadow? A child falls while jumping rope. What might that fall foreshadow? Probably another, more serious fall.

What is an important fact in a chapter? Many children cannot distinguish between trivial facts and important facts. All facts seem important. Questions like this force students to rank facts.

What can you infer from the frown on a character’s face? Or from a character’s silence? Or from a character’s cowering?

From the picture book stage to the chapter book stage, these questions can be used to help a student grasp a deeper understanding of a book and the choices its author made to create it.

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Posted in asking questions, chapter books, critical thinking, methods of teaching reading, picture books, reading comprehension, reading readiness.

The four, no five, no eight pillars of reading

Posted on August 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Focusing on four skills leads to good reading achievement in children, we used to think. Then came a comprehensive US government report in 2000 saying five skills are necessary. In the ensuing 23 years, researchers tell us three more skills are necessary. Let’s look at those skills, starting with a chart showing four skills, followed by information on five skills, and ending with the latest three skills.

Previously, vocabulary was considered part of the fourth component of reading. Now it is considered a separate component, as are three previously unrecognized skills: oral language, writing, and background knowledge.

Phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and identify individual sounds in words—such as the sound of “b” in “bat”—and to move sounds around to hear them in various parts of words. This skill is taught in pre-K and kindergarten to most American school children.

Phonics, the ability to match the sounds of English to letters or to letter pairs in order to form words. This skill is usually taught in kindergarten and first grade.

Vocabulary, the ability to recognize and understand three kinds of words: everyday spoken words, more complex words (SAT-like words), and domain specific words (words used in specific contexts, such as the baseball-related words of pitcher, shortstop, foul ball and bunt).

Fluency, the ability to read text accurately at conversational speed, using expression.

Comprehension, the ability to understand what is read.

The three other skills that have been identified as crucial to learning to read are

Oral language, the ability to understand spoken language and to speak it. Proficiency in oral language precedes proficiency in reading.

Writing, the ability to use written symbols to represent words and to transmit meaning

Background knowledge, the ability to store and retrieve information and apply it to new knowledge gained from reading.

No wonder reading is such a complex skill for children to master.

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Posted in academic vocabulary, background knowledge, comprehension, fluency, letter sounds, oral language, phonemes, phonics, pronunciation of words, reading comprehension, reading readiness., reading research, reading-writing connection, sounds of English, systematic phonics instruction, vocabulary

Increase comprehension by using the SQ3R method

Posted on April 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

Ever hear of the SQ3R* (or SQRRR) reading method? SQ3R is a method of reading which improves comprehension.

S means Survey headlines, subheadings, bold and italicized print, and graphics before reading a passage. Also read the introduction and conclusion. From them, develop an understanding of what the text concerns before you read.
Q means Question. Write down questions you have about what you will be reading. One way is to turn the headlines and subheadings into questions.
R means Read. Answer the questions you asked while you read. Take notes, highlight, and draw diagrams to help you understand and remember what you read.
R means Recite. Say out loud what you have learned from your reading. Use your own words. This process helps move the information into your long-term memory.
R means Review. Save your annotated text or notes and study them many times.

SQ3R has evolved into SQ4R for some readers, who suggest the fourth R should be Rewrite. Write a summary of the passage in the margins, on post-it notes, on notebook paper or on computer/tablet/phone.

Can this method be used with young readers? Absolutely. If you are reading a book about whales to your preschooler, for example, first survey the cover, read the title, page through the book, and look at the pictures. Ask what the book is about and what the youngster hopes to learn from the book. Then read the book. Ask the child to tell you what the book said. Later that day and the next day, again ask the child to tell what the book was about or to draw a picture of what the book was about.

*SQ3R was developed by Francis P. Robinson and described in his 1946 book Effective Study.

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Posted in asking questions, comprehension, diagrams, methods of teaching reading, reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading tips

Understanding content–the later part of reading comprehension

Posted on February 4, 2021 | Leave a comment

Reading comprehension requires a child to understand two broad skills according to The Simple View of Reading, proposed in 1986.** Those skills include recognizing words (usually through organized phonics instruction) and understanding the content of language. In our last blog we talked about word recognition. Today let us discuss language comprehension.

Understanding content depends on four elements:

Understanding vocabulary,
Having a wide and somewhat sophisticated knowledge base,
Understanding sentence structures, and
Understanding figurative language.

In kindergarten, first and second grades, children focus on building phonics skills so they can code and decode words. In third grade, children’s focus shifts to understanding the content of written language. This is the time when children recognize as sight words many of the words they have worked for two or three years to code and decode. With less thought going into deciphering letter sounds and combining them into words, children have more energy to focus on understanding what those words, phrases and sentences mean.

By third and fourth grade, children have mastered the basics of phonics, including words of many syllables. They recognize letter patterns quickly if the reading is grade appropriate, though they still struggle with technical language, subject specific vocabulary, and words of foreign derivation. They rely on their understanding of prefixes, root words, and suffixes as well as context to figure out the meaning of new words. They might reread a passage when they realize they don’t understand it. They might look up words in dictionaries. They might predict, summarize and conclude. They might scan headlines, subheadings, captions and graphics to gain understanding.

Until third and fourth grade, most students’ oral language skills—using precise words, speaking in complicated sentences and using irony, for example—outstrip their reading skills. But in third and fourth grades that gap narrows. A child’s comprehension depends far less on decoding skills and more on understanding a wide vocabulary, having a sophisticated understanding of the environment and understanding how sentences, paragraphs and various genres of writing are constructed.

Sometime in late middle school, children’s oral language converges with their reading comprehension.* Students gain new vocabulary and understanding of their environment more from reading than from conversation. At this time of life, it is important for students to read widely and often to increase their vocabulary and knowledge base, to understand how ideas are structured and to appreciate how figurative language enriches comprehension.

This understanding of reading skills—a combination of word deciphering skills and comprehension skills—was proposed in 1986 by Gough and Tunmer.** They called this understanding The Simple View of Reading (SVR).

*Biemiller, A. (1999). Language and reading success. Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.

**Gough PB, Tunmer PB. Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education. 1986;7:6–10. doi: 10.1177/074193258600700104.

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Posted in comprehension, figurative language, phonics, reading comprehension, Simple View of Reading, vocabulary

Worth reading: The Settled Science of Teaching Reading*

Posted on August 27, 2019 | Leave a comment

I thought the time for discussion was over, that the correct way to teach reading had been established by research almost twenty years ago.

Apparently not. On social media the discussion continues. Is it better to focus on teaching phonics and how letter sounds form words or to focus on whole language (memorizing words and discovering meaning).

After a study of hundreds of research reports of how children learn to read, the US government reported in 2000 that the best way to teach English reading is to focus on phonemes and phonics first. Children need instruction on how sounds correspond to letters, and how combining those letters forms words. New readers also need to memorize high frequency words that don’t necessarily follow the rules of phonics (words like “was, ” “do,” and “the”).

According to the 2000 National Reading Panel, students need to learn five concepts relating to reading:

Phonics (combining letters to form words)
Phonological awareness (how sounds correspond to letters)
Fluency (reading in phrases with appropriate stops and starts and with voice inflection)
Vocabulary
Comprehension (understanding what is read)

Decoding the language comes from studying phonics, phonological awareness and fluency. Combine that with vocabulary and you achieve the desired result of reading comprehension.

Yet research also shows that even today not all reading teachers know, or even if they know, apply the correct approaches to teaching reading.

If your kindergarten child comes home with lists of words to memorize, beware. If those words are sight words, okay. But the main focus of his or her learning should be how sounds correspond to letters, and how combining those letters forms words, and how combining those words forms sentences with meaning.

*https://www.collaborativeclassroom.org/blog/the-settled-science-of-teaching-reading-part-1/?_hsmi=76082821

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Posted in beginning readers, comprehension, exceptions to phonics rules, fluency, letter sounds, methods of teaching reading, phonemes, phonics, reading comprehension, reading research, sight words, vocabulary, whole language

7 symbols early readers can use to annotate texts

Posted on August 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

Annotating texts is an important reading skill. Finding the main idea, identifying ideas which support that main idea, identifying facts (not opinions), discovering new or unusual words—as adults we know to look for this kind of information and to annotate it in the margins as we read.

But what if you are a beginning reader and can’t write words like “main idea” or even “fact”? How do you annotate a text so you can go back and understand it better?

An elementary school in the Bronx has figured out how. The school teaches preschoolers to mark texts with the following seven symbols. (The meaning of the symbols follows.)

Marking the text this way is part of Concourse Village Elementary School’s way of helping students understand what they read. And it works! 88 percent of students scored at the advanced or proficient levels on the New York State exams in both math and English language arts in 2018. That’s more than 40 points higher than the citywide averages. To find out more information, go to an article in Edutopia at https://www.edutopia.org/article/driving-deep-reading-comprehension-k-5.

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Posted in annotating texts, comprehension, critical thinking, main idea in a reading passage, methods of teaching reading, reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading tips, reading-writing connection

Recognizing sounds come first, not recognizing letters

Posted on February 13, 2019 | Leave a comment

Which comes first, reading or speaking? Speaking, of course. A one-year-old can say a few words, but hardly any one-year-old can read. Most two-year-olds can say hundreds of words and can form tiny sentences, but hardly any two-year-olds can read.

Which comes first, recognizing sounds or recognizing letters? Recognizing sounds, of course. A one-year-old can recognize and repeat the sounds of many words, but few one-year-olds can recognize letters. A two-year-old knows hundreds of words, but hardly any two-year-olds recognize more than a handful of letters.

So if sounds and speaking come before recognizing letters and reading, why do some teachers teach the ABC’s first—recognizing visual “pictures” of sounds—rather than teaching the sounds of our language first?

Are we teaching reading backwards?

What if instead of teaching children to read “cat” using ABC’s, we taught children to read “cat” orally, with no ABC’s? What if we taught children how to recognize the separate sounds that form words like “cat”? What if we said “c-a-t” slowly, emphasizing the “c,” “a,” and “t” sounds without ever naming those sounds with letter names? What if we asked preschoolers to break down little words like “cat” into their beginning, middle and ending sounds without ever naming those sounds with letter names?

This would be a radically different approach to teaching reading. But this approach would align with what researchers are learning about how our brains learn to read.

The foundation of reading is not ABC’s. The foundation of reading is sounds, sounds listened to by a child and sounds repeated aloud by a child.

How would that work in practice?

You, the teacher, would say, one-at-a-time, the 40-plus sounds of the English language. Your student would repeat those sounds, one at a time. If some sounds were hard for the student to say, you would repeat those sounds and ask the child to repeat those sounds until you were sure the child could hear and pronounce those sounds correctly.
Next, one-at-a-time, you would say some tiny words and ask the child to say each word and to say the sounds in the word. You would model how to do this with many words until the child knew what was expected. You would make it a game, looking around and saying the name of an object nearby like “bat.” You would sound out the word slowly—“b,” “a,” “t”—and ask the child to do the same. At first this might be hard for the child, but once she figures out what is expected, she would sound out words quickly.
With practice, the child would understand that individual sounds, when combined, form words. Only then would you introduce ABC’s.

Pronunciation of words is an important aspect of learning to read. Our brains store the sounds of words just like they store the meaning and the look of words. In your mind, right now, as you are reading these words, you are saying the words, right? And you are remembering the meaning of those words, though at this stage of your life, that might be so automatic that you are unaware of it. Long ago when you were learning to read, it was the sound of the words which came first to you, long before you knew what the words meant or before you could decipher the letter patterns of words. Sounds come first.

For more information, read the research of Linnea Ehri (2002).